We are made up of our experiences, what happens to us, what we happen. That is why memory is a door. We enter, we exit. The murderer, who can forget his acts of violence, is no longer a murderer.
When I see her standing there weeping, painting her young face caged, I walk over and stand to her left. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi.’ ‘What do you want?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘So, you’re crying.’ ‘Yeah. He did it again. I want out of here.’ ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ ‘Okay.’
Any number of possible endings, but an experience that ended in one. She died. We didn’t do it. I remember because it is part of who I should be.
Then there are those other things. Of shame. Kept alive, we are those people, though we should never have been them. Forgotten, there is hope. That we are not those people, but different.
Only a small world can be described, only a small person knows another.